The field of the invention relates generally to the design and manufacture of electromagnetic components and related methods, and more particularly to the design and manufacture of electromagnetic transformer components for electronic devices and applications.
Electromagnetic components are known that utilize electric current and magnetic fields to provide a desired effect in an electrical circuit. Transformers are one well known type of electromagnetic components that include at least one pair of coils or windings, sometimes referred to as a primary winding and as secondary winding. Electrical current flow through the primary winding induces a magnetic field within a magnetic core, which in turn induces electrical current flow in the secondary winding. Depending on the relative number of turns in the primary and secondary windings, the current output in the secondary winding may be increased or decreased relative to the current flow in the primary winding. Voltage and current transformers are known that function to convert an input voltage or input current having a first magnitude to an output voltage or output current having a second magnitude different from the first magnitude. Such transformers are sometimes referred to as step-up and step-down transformers.
Recent trends to produce increasingly powerful, yet smaller electronic devices have led to numerous challenges to the electronics industry. Electronic devices such as smart phones, personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, entertainment devices, and portable computer devices, to name a few, are now widely owned and operated by a large, and growing, population of users. Such devices include an impressive, and rapidly expanding, array of features allowing such devices to interconnect with a plurality of communication networks, including but not limited to the Internet, as well as other electronic devices. Rapid information exchange using wireless communication platforms is possible using such devices, and such devices have become very convenient and popular to business and personal users alike.
For surface mount component manufacturers for circuit board applications required by such electronic devices, the challenge has been to provide increasingly miniaturized components so as to minimize the area occupied on a circuit board by the component (sometimes referred to as the component “footprint”) and also its height measured in a direction perpendicular to a plane of the circuit board (sometimes referred to as the component “profile”). By decreasing the footprint and profile, the size of the circuit board assemblies for electronic devices can be reduced and/or the component density on the circuit board(s) can be increased, which allows for reductions in size of the electronic device itself or increased capabilities of a device with comparable size. Miniaturizing electromagnetic components in a cost effective manner has introduced a number of practical challenges to electromagnetic component manufacturers in a highly competitive marketplace. Because of the high volume of components needed for electronic devices in great demand, cost reduction in fabricating components has been of great practical interest to electromagnetic component manufacturers.
In order to meet increasing demand for electronic devices, especially hand held devices, each generation of electronic devices need to be not only smaller, but offer increased functional features and capabilities. As a result, the electronic devices must be increasingly powerful devices. For some types of components, such as electromagnetic transformer components used in the power supply circuitry for the devices, meeting increased power demands while continuing to reduce the size of components that are already quite small, has proven challenging.